THE number of drink driving detections may have decreased in 2016, but there has been a surge of people arrested for the offence in the first two months of this year.

Garda Chief Superintendent for the Kerry Division, Tom Myers, revealed that there have been 58 detections in January and February – nine in the past weekend – up 15 on the same period last year.

Chief Supt Myers was speaking at the Joint Policing Committee meeting on Monday afternoon where he gave the crime figures for 2016.

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The figures showed intoxicated while driving detections were down nine per cent from 301 in 2015 to 273 last year. There were nine cases of driving under the influence of drugs compared to 11 the year before.

The 21 to 40 age group accounted for 57% of the drink driving detections, showing the message still isn’t getting through to younger people about the dangers of driving with alcohol on board.

Nearly half of the detections were made on Saturdays and Sundays. May was the busiest month with 39 arrests and February the quietest with 14 detections.

There were seven fatal traffic collisions last year, down one on 2015. There was a 50% rise in serious injury collisions up to 24 from 16. There were 1,255 accidents where material damage was caused.